their copybooks, to see that the line so beautifully written in round hand at the head of each page was orthodox. Mab gave herself a great deal more to do than if she had herself been the mistress of the school. She asked the girls all sorts of unexpected questions to test their views of morality. ‘What would you do if you saw somebody take something out of a shop? Suppose you saw a very poor person take a loaf from the baker’s?’ said Mab, with an anxious pucker in her forehead. ‘Oh, miss!’ cried two or three girls together; ‘tell Mr. White that minute, and if he runned away, catch him up.’ ‘But if he were very, very poor--starving?’ said Mab. There was a pause, for of course all the girls studied her countenance to know what she wished them to reply; and Mab’s little round, blunt-featured face, with an anxious cloud upon its childish brow, was void of all expression that could be taken as guidance. ‘If we knowed the man we could tell after--when he was gone,’ said one Jesuitical little person. ‘And then ‘e could run after ‘im to ‘is ‘ouse--or send the police,’ cried the rest. The idea of sending the police was the most popular. It seemed somehow to take off the responsibility. But the girls soon perceived that this was not the solution required. ‘If you please, miss,’ said a sharp little girl who was well acquainted with Mab’s ways, ‘if I ‘ad a penny I’d pay instead of ‘im, and then it wouldn’t be stealing at all.’ This was received, however, by a spontaneous groan from the class. ‘Oh, Lizzie Jones! that would be cheating as well.’ ‘And it ain’t likely as I’d ‘ave the penny,’ said Lizzie meekly. She drew from Mab’s countenance the consolation that, after all, it was she who had answered the best. To describe the delight with which Mrs. Brown looked on and listened to all this would be difficult. She read little Mab like a book, and her sense of humour was tickled beyond description. That she was herself upon her trial, and that the sentiments of her scholars were to be considered in justification or condemnation--while, at the same time, Mab was covertly consulting their ignorance and (supposed) spontaneousness of perception like an oracle, was as clear as daylight to this clever woman. She had never met anything so funny in her life; and it delighted her as a good joke delights people who are given that way, whether it is against themselves or not. But the gravity of her aspect was equally beyond description. She seemed to take this question in ethics with the most perfect good faith and all the seriousness in the world. ‘If the man was starving,’ she said, taking up the argument, ‘and Lizzie Jones had not a penny, as is most likely, and he was known not to be a dishonest man, but only driven mad by the poor children hungry at home----’ ‘Yes, teacher,’ said Lizzie Jones, who felt that she herself had thrown most light on the subject. ‘Well,’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘of course it is never right to shield a wrong act.’